Finally Bricsys has released the official version of Bricscad V10 for Linux. Linux users now have very capable desktop CAD software able to handle the DWG file format. From Bricscad website: "Bricsys is the first to release a .dwg based CAD software for Linux users. Bricsys NV, the developer of Bricscad, announced today that Bricscad V10 for Linux is now available. Bricscad V10 is the first .dwg based CAD platform available for the Linux Operating System. Bricscad V10, the leading alternative CAD platform for the .dwg file format, continues to offer freedom of choice to the CAD and Engineering community."

And being a standard is sadly more important than being a good piece of software. Some industry-standard software exist only to prove this sentence right everyday (everyone will have some names in mind, sadly I can't reveal those in my own mind without being flagged as troll ).

DWG ("drawing") is a file format used for storing two and three dimensional design data and metadata. It is the native format for several CAD packages including AutoCAD, IntelliCAD (and its variants) and Caddie.

Bricscad uses the IntelliCAD engine. Bricscad is therefore a variant of IntelliCAD.

The DWG file format itself is the critical issue. Because many companies have existing large libraries of DWG-format files, the IP of those engineering companies is dependent on, and tied up in, the DWG format.

Bricscad is a CAD package developed by Bricsys, it was originally built using the IntelliCAD engine. It is designed for Windows and is among the few commercially supported CAD packages which runs on Linux.

Bricscad uses the Open Design Alliance DWG libraries to read and write the DWG file format made popular by the AutoCAD CAD package.

The DWG file format is the native file format of the Bricscad CAD software package.

Well, at least on civil engineering they are thriving (actually, is really hard to see something else being used) and still is used on mechanical and electrical ones, specially inside the structural design. For the last two it was really not the best fit to design parts, even if I saw sometimes it being used.